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First Battle of Pluto (2199)
:For the comparable battle in the original series, see First Battle of Pluto (OS). Code-named Operation M, the First Battle of Pluto was a major engagement of the Garmillas-Earth War fought in close proximity to the dwarf planet Pluto. While the battle was a near-total tactical loss for the United Nations Cosmo Navy, it proved to be an effective distraction from the UNCN's primary goal of recovering advanced alien technology being delivered to humanity in secret. The strategic victory set into motion events that would eventually end the war and save life on the planet Earth. Prelude Still depleted from their costly victory at the Second Battle of Mars and having endured years of planet bombings, the Earth Federation approved a plan to send a small number of survivors into interstellar space to re-start human civilization. As the plan progressed, Earth was unexpectedly contacted by Queen Starsha Iscandar of the planet Iscandar with an offer of technology that would revert Earth to its lush, habitable state. Despite Starsha's close alliance with the Garmillan ruler, the continuing assault on Earth offended her deep commitment to the preservation of life throughout the universe, motivating her to act. If Earth built a new ship based on wave motion energy, the queen would send her sister Sasha a year later with a wave motion core to power it for the long journey to Iscandar to take possession of the life-saving technology. The original plan to evacuate and start over was halted in favor of the bolder Yamato Plan ("Messenger of Iscandar", "Toward a Sea of Stars", "Out of the Forest of Memory", "The Distant Promised Land"). In order to assure that the wave motion core was received safely, the UN Cosmo Navy devised an all-or-nothing gambit to distract the Great Garmillas Imperial Astro Fleet into a confrontation so that Sasha Iscandar's ship, code-named "Amaterasu,"[http://yamato2199.net/mecha/iskander_sn01.html Official Space Battleship Yamato 2199 website ship data on Sheherazade] would not be intercepted. To do this, the Cosmo Navy gathered its remaining twenty-two ships into the First Fleet, led personally by the UNCN commander, Admiral Juzo Okita, aboard the flagship Kirishima. Three weeks before the battle and the arrival of the Iscandarian vessel, the fleet began its journey toward Pluto and the main Garmillas base in the solar system. A two-person team was dispatched to Mars, concealed inside the ruins of the Arcadia Port settlement on the surface, and remained on standby to retrieve the package when it arrived ("Messenger of Iscandar"). The Battle Two hundred thousand kilometers from Pluto and ahead of the main UNCN force, the destroyer Yukikaze commanded by Lieutenant Commander Mamoru Kodai signaled its arrival in the expected area of combat, but detected no enemy response. Meanwhile, at a distance of three hundred eighty thousand kilometers, the First Fleet quickly encountered contacts on their radar approaching from behind, nearly one hundred twenty Garmillas ships of various classes. The Garmillas formed their own battle lines and sent a simple message to the humans demanding their surrender. Okita simply replied, "Nuts," resulting in an opening salvo from the aliens that immediately destroyed the heavy cruiser Yuugiri and drove another heavy cruiser, Kurama, out of formation. The remaining First Fleet returned fire, but the energy beams of their technologically inferior cannons bounced off the enemy hulls and missiles missed their targets. Earth ships were being damaged or sunk one after another, and the crippled Shimakaze careened into a fellow UNCN vessel, Abukuma. As the fleet sustained rapidly mounting losses and Kirishima itself took damage, Okita held firm. : His patience was rewarded when "Amaterasu" signaled as it passed Neptune at high speed. Okita sent an encoded message to the UN Far East Sector Headquarters confirming the ship's arrival in the system. Monitoring the operation from headquarters, Admiral Ryu Hijikata ordered the recovery team on Mars to stand ready, and ten minutes later, the team saw the vessel burning on approach and explode in mid-air, just as an escape pod ejected. The two officers walked from their landed reconnaissance plane to the pod's crash site, but found that the its occupant, Sasha Iscandar, had died with an undamaged wave motion core clutched to her chest. The team confirmed recovery of the core. Okita received confirmation of the retrieval and immediately ordered the last surviving First Fleet ships, Kirishima and Yukikaze, to retreat. As the weakened flagship began its withdrawal, a Garmillas destroyer dove toward it and opened fire. Just before Kirishima was hit, Yukikaze pursued and sank the destroyer with two torpedoes from behind. Rather than obeying the retreat order, Yukikaze passed the flagship and headed toward the area of battle. Despite Okita's orders and pleas, Kodai argued that Earth needed the admiral and that his destroyer would make certain Okita returned. Yukikaze flew straight toward the enemy, dodging volleys of cannon fire in the middle of their confused formations and causing at least one Garmillas ship to be destroyed by another, until it was struck by a direct hit that created a massive explosion. Safely away from the attention of the Garmillas, Kirishima continued on course toward the inner solar system ("Messenger of Iscandar"). Aftermath With only one ship surviving the battle, the already weakened UNCN fleet could no longer maintain the line it had held for years against Garmillas ship incursions within the orbit of the Moon.[http://yamato2199.net/character_hijikata.html Official Space Battleship Yamato 2199 website character data on Ryu Hijikata] Weeks after their victory, the Garmillans sent a carrier that wiped out a UN Cosmo Marine base on the Moon and continued to Earth orbit, launching a scout ship and fighters and directly attacking an underground military facility ("Messenger of Iscandar", "Toward a Sea of Stars", Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Odyssey of the Celestial Ark). Kirishima passed Mars three weeks later and picked up the extraction team, bringing the wave motion core to the UN Far East Headquarters. Upon arrival, the core would be used to initiate the Yamato Plan and complete the space battleship Yamato ("Messenger of Iscandar", "Toward a Sea of Stars"). Yukikaze was assumed to have been destroyed with all hands lost. However, the crew of Yamato detected a weak automated distress call coming from the vicinity of Saturn and determined that the damaged Yukikaze had managed to crash land on one of the planet's moons, Enceladus. Months later, they learned that a small number of the destroyer's crew, including Kodai and first officer Eiji Ishizu, had been captured alive by enemy forces with the intention of using them as biological research specimens on the Garmillan homeworld ("Gravestone on a Frozen Field", "The Distant Promised Land"). Although the UNCN's ploy successfully distracted attention from Sasha Iscandar's vessel, the subsequent success of Yamato as it soundly defeated Garmillas forces at Jupiter, Pluto, and beyond was clear evidence of Queen Starsha's involvement. Relations between Iscandar and the Garmillan leader, Abelt Dessler, would be strained for months afterward ("What Lies Beyond", "One Man's War"). Gallery Image:Operation M Garmillas hits bounce.png|Garmillas vessels remain unharmed in the opening volley of the battle. Image:Kodai approaches Sasha escape pod Mars.png|The recovery team on Mars nears Sasha Iscandar's downed escape craft. Image:Mori Hijikata Operation M.png|Monitoring the operation from Earth. References Japanese language information *第一次冥王星の戦い Daiichiji Meiōsei no Tatakai (First Battle of Pluto) *M 作戦 M Sakusen (Operation M) Category:Battles (2199) Category:Events (2199) Category:Garmillas-Earth War